I'm beginning to think that the Bush Administration is plainly the most clever and diabolical group of people I've ever seen. This whole Iraq thing, the way they've orchestrated, has been pretty frickin brilliant.

Let's go to the replay-

All summer-long, stories have been leaked about plans being drawn up for an invasion of Iraq. The President, however, doesn't say much other than a brief threat here and there, usually in the middle of a golf game. His cronies- Dickie, Rummyand Condi- are everywhere, talking up the invasion with the same sort of crazed look that Jack Nicholson had in "The Shining." To further get things going, stories are leaked that a lot of Bush's henchmen have been telling Bush that he doesn't need no stinking U.N. nor any stinking congressional approval.

The War Pigs are squeeling, the international community is all afroth, the media is in frenzy mode, and the Democrats actually get their heads out of their asses and speak up. "But wait, chill," everyone says to themselves, "it can't be that bad, can it?" Everyone immediately thinks that it's all nonsense and that it's just the manic frothings of the aides and that the President knows whats up and will take care of it all. Then they all take a lot at the President and everyone has the same reaction- oh shit.

His little (month-long) vacation over, W. makes like he acquiesces and announces that as much as it pains him, he'll go to the U.N. Right before he goes, he nurses himself on the teet of the 9/11 sap-fest and then gives his speech. And you know what? He gave a good speech. Really (I actually watched part of it). He mentioned the League of Nations like he actually knew what it was, talked about all the U.N. Resolutions that have been passed against Iraq and challenged the U.N. to do something (a completely valid thing to do, actually).

Afterwards, the International Community praises the speech to high hell, like a puppy-eyed 16 year old boy with a crush trying to suck up to the object of his affection because she asked him what he thought about something. What they praise isn't necessarily what he said in the speech, but the fact that he actually showed up and made a show of going multinational. It doesn't matter that this should have been a no-brainer or that Bush probably was gonna do it anyways, it's just that there so much mucketymuck out there saying he wasn't going to show up in the first place that his mere presence was enough to bring hosanna's of praise.

And once again, if you read what the International press and Diplomats have been saying, part of the reason why they liked the speech is because he gave a good one. The expectations on the President, especially abroad, are still so low that just the fact that he didn't go up there and shot off six shooters and stamper up and down about hunting varmints is worthy of praise. The fact he even knew what a U.N. Resolution was (and we all know Condi told him what they are) was enough to make everyone give a sigh of relief.

So what happens? The U.S. suddenly gets all this support we didn't think we'd get. The Egyptians and the Saudi's start saying they might let us use their bases, the EU says they might be down with the whole thing, and the Democrats once again stick their heads up their ass.

And all because Smirkboy made one speech.

But that's not the really brilliant part. The really brilliant part is that one of the main reason why everyone's scrambling to get shit done is because the Bush administration still has everyone thinking that they're just crazy enough to do something crazy. They just look at Dicky and Rummy, see the gleam in their eyes when they talk about "regime change," see that W. still has never actually thought about anything other than what the Ranger's did that day, and know that we're quite capable of going Dr. Strangelove on everyone's ass.

See, what I mean? It's fucking brilliant. We, as a country, are now the crazy psycho guy who everyone let's get what they want because everyone's afraid that if they don't, they'll get the shit kicked out of them.

Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?